


The Birth of the Doctor

by SinaSparrow



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Comfort, Drama, Eleventh Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-07-18 01:31:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7294072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinaSparrow/pseuds/SinaSparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is at the brink of his existance and there is only one thing Clara and her new-found friends can do to keep him from fading from this world forever: Find the exact moment, when the Doctor was born. And in the meantime, accidentally uncover one of his deepest and darkest secrets, that shall never be spoken of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Absent

**Author's Note:**

> Set somewhere in series 7. Eleventh Doctor with Clara as his companion. This is a bit of a heartbreaking one.  
> Chapters will probably get longer.  
> Please note that English is not my first language and that I translated this whole thing from my original in German. So odd phrasing is possible at times :D  
> Feel free to leave feedback if you like :)

Chapter 1 - „Absent“ 

Two hearts were racing in unity, faster and faster, louder and louder. There was only one destination and it was close, so close, almost reachable. But the voices, not very far, became more angry, more furious. Not long anymore and they would be there. Cold hands would be grasping, tearing, voices would cry out. Oh and how they lingered, the cries of fear, of pain, uttered by innocent children and the helpless sobbing of those who remained. Escape. Escape. Escape! And no turning back. The horror was too dreadful, guilt too great and the pain was way too deep. There was only one option left: to run away and never ever stop. For ever. Run. 

Clara Oswald, a young, beautiful girl and newest addition to the Tardis strolled, holding a book about the myths and stories of the Morveranians in her arms, through the never ending corridors of the infamous spaceship which held the image of a blue police box, at least from the outside.   
Although the feeling, that the ship, or “her” as the Doctor liked to correct her, didn't like her, had already vanished, Clara sometimes believed the Tardis simply had fun with constantly reordering the corridors, rooms and hallways in front of her room. Since fifteen minutes already she was searching for the big console room, which also seemed to not be able to stay in its proper place for at least a day on end. After another ten minutes then, the Tardis seemed to have had enough fun with her, because all of a sudden an intersection, which she had definitely already passed three times, led directly into the room she had been searching for so desperately.   
“Hey!” she greeted her new-found friend cheerfully despite her frustrating search and watched him as he was fiddling about with five sparking electronic cables in one hand, a huge, complicated looking book lying open right next to him. Oddly enough he did not even seem to notice her presence in the room. Carefully she leaned upon the console and slowly pushed herself / slid directly into the field of view of the doctor, making it impossible for him not to see her. “Hello?” she tried again with a chuckle in her voice. But as he seemingly found it unnecessary to reply to that, too, her pride took over and she refrained from any further attempts to catch his attention. He was probably just highly concentrated anyways. Clara suddenly felt like she knew what John Watson must have thought, as his famous detective friend, whom Clara had read all about, was once again completely caught up in his own world. With a hearty sigh she dropped herself onto one of the comfortable benches and was just about to open her book when an idea struck her. “Was that you? Why the rooms are moving all the time? Are the rooms changed when you play around with those cables? Some sort of intra... dimensional... room-movement-effect?” she asked and looked up at the Doctor with hoping eyes. Usually, when she tried to explain his complex alien technology in her own simple words, he was immediately correcting her in long, difficult sentences and afterwards questioning her intellect. But not today. He did not make a single sound. Clara glanced skeptically at the figure in front of her.   
“Interface? Is that you?”   
Nothing.  
In this very moment Clara decided, that something was everything but right here. And with that, she was painfully right.   
With deep concern in her eyes she looked up at him. She was very close to him now, so close that she would have been able so perceive his, by now, familiar scent, if it had been there. He was only a picture of himself, simply a memory that was floating around the room. There were tears in her eyes that she wanted to hold back at all cost, when she carefully placed her hand on his arm and felt... nothing. She could simply grasp through him, while he was still staring at his tangled cables intently.  
His expression seemed almost enraged, as if the monotonous movements, that did not seem to have made any sense anymore for quite a while now, would infuriate his mind. As if he was held captive in his self and mad, on the verge of going berserk. Clara drew back with shivering knees until she landed, half stumbling, upon the bench. She suddenly felt so alone and helpless like only once before in her life. Back then, when she had been small and had lost her mother in the middle of a giant crowd. She simply couldn't stop staring at the Doctor in horror and was internally asking, pleading, screaming for him to come back, for him not to just leave her alone like that. But absolutely nothing happened. And by now she could also not hold back the tears any longer. The tears that she would never let anybody see. After all, she was completely on her own.   
How much time she had actually spent with being huddled on the bench, getting up, ruffling her hair and walking back and forth in the console room in a frustrated manner like a tiger behind bars, she did not know.  
It seemed to her like half an eternity at least. She was only moments away from letting her desperation out on the sensitive console, when suddenly: Knock! Knock! Knock!   
As she was dragged out of her train of thought, Clara was startled and considered for a brief moment, whether she had only imagined the mysterious knocking, but in this moment it sounded again, loudly and unmistakably. Somebody... or something was knocking on the doors of the Tardis.   
While she was in the midst of outer space.  
Clara basically switched into defense mode and decided, that in her current situation, the only chance of help was probably right on the other side of those doors. And so she cautiously moved closer to invite the unknown guest in.   
Considering all the weird and definitely not harmless creatures which were roaming this huge universe, it did not seem all that unlikely, that some sort of dreadful alien horror was lurking behind the doors, only waiting to jump right at her to eat her up alive. But deep insider her there was a spark of hope. Maybe, as soon as she would open these doors, a raggedy Doctor would be hurrying past her, holding a lecture consisting of diverse technical terms as an explanation for what had just happened and finally getting everything back into order with just a few simple pushes of buttons and pulling on levers. Concentrating on this hope in her heart, she finally grabbed the handle, jerked the door open quickly and... stared into the faces of two strangers.   
With a friendly and enthusiastic “Hello!” a young woman pushed Clara aside and walked, without the slightest hesitation, right over to the round console in the middle of the room. She pushed her hair back behind her ear and started to inspect the diverse set of controls.  
The young man, who was still standing … or hovering...outside smiled at her and followed the woman with a mumbled apology as he gently pushed her aside. Only to make sure that there weren't any other unannounced guests, Clara swiftly stuck her head out of the spaceship but saw nothing but the final frontier, larded with little glowing stars and multicolored nebula. As soon as the still puzzled Clara had closed the door behind her she regained her senses and and started to realize what had happened a second ago.   
“H..hey you! Who are you? Where's your ship? And...” She glanced at the redheaded woman, who by now had begun to push buttons with apparent randomness, with uneasiness and tried to sound as self-confident as possible. “And stop messing with that! That's the Doctor's!” And as if the woman had waited for the catchword, she immediately refrained from fiddling with the console and was now looking directly at Clara. “My name is Amy Pond and this is my husband, Rory Williams. We're here to help.” 

 

*Please insert DooWeeDoo here *


	2. Uninvited Guests

Clara was only hesitating a few seconds before suddenly grabbing one of the wrenches that were lying around, holding it in front of her as if to defend herself with a sword. However ridiculous this attempt might look, for Clara it created a certain assurance, not to stand in front of those two intruders without any form of protection. Right now, the wrench represented not only her defensive and distant opinion about the two, but also her independence, so that at least she had the feeling, that she was the superior one in this situation.  
In the meantime Amy looked at her husband with raised eyebrows before she, despite the highly dangerous weapon directed at her, strut over to the console completely sedately, in order to press a few buttons.   
“Hey!” Clara cried out immediately and stepped up to Amy. “I said hands off!” She tried to conceal the nervousness in her voice as best as she could, which, to her own regret, did not work as well as she had hoped. “Chill out, soldier. I'm only playing a video.” In order to emphasize her order, Clara now raised her eyebrows at Rory, who seemed to be a lot less self assured, and pointed the wrench directly at him.  
But he merely held up his hands in a gesture of innocence and was kept from even saying a single word due to a video, now being played on every single screen in the entire room.   
A triumphant smile on her face, Amy leaned back on the console, crossed her arms and watched Clara as her attention was caught by the recording, slowly lowering the wrench in her hands.   
“We're former companions of the Doctor. And... good friends. Due to a chain of unfortunate events, including a paradox, we were trapped in 1930s New York, up until recently. Please do not ask for an explanation.” Amy prevented Clara from throwing in her objections. “That would be way to complicated and would take us at least half the day.”   
It was the two strangers there, on the video screen, no doubt. They were, together with the Doctor who was sitting in a hammock beneath a glass floor, while he was fiddling with something involving a vertiginous amount of cables, having a heated discussion about their most recent destination of travel.   
“You said they were friendly!” Amy's tinny voice shouted through both the Tardis of the recording, as well as the current one. The Tardis looked quite different. More friendly, warmer, like a home. But still it was unmistakably the Tardis with its prominent glass cylinder and the console with all the buttons and switches.   
“Well they are! … Usually.” The Doctor hesitated. “Aahh how should I have known that they are currently holding their very famous and … unfortunately also very deadly millennial triathlon?!” He snapped and crossed his arms. “We passed by three placarded moons on our way!” Amy's voice pitched hysterically .   
“All right, all right. Maybe I did know.” The Doctor finally admitted and after hesitating for a moment, pointed at his two companions, who, taking a closer look, seemed very disheveled. A cheeky smile appeared on his face.   
“But you have to admit, it really was a spectacle worth seeing.”   
Amy stopped the recording right in the middle of a cry of frustration uttered by her former self and now turned her attention towards Clara with an expectant but friendly expression.   
It all came down to Clara's decision. Would she believe them? She had so many questions which basically screamed to be answered. Where had they come from all of a sudden? Why had the Doctor never talked about them? What had happened, that they could just show up out of nowhere? Were they really who they said they were? The decision she would be making could decide about life or death of the Doctor. When glancing upon his holograph she felt a slight sting in her heart. It hurt so much, seeing her friend like this.   
“All right. Fine. I believe you. But there will be rules! You will not act without my consent. Now unexpected side missions, no secret whispering behind my back. We all play with open cards, understand?” She lowered her voice and squinted at the two with her best nanny-face. “As soon as I have just the slightest presumption that you two want to deceive me and hurt the Doctor in any way, I will through you out those doors and not give a damn what's gonna happen to you two!”   
Although Clara was noticeably smaller than her more or less uninvited guests, a certain certitude filled the room, that she would find a way to fulfill her threat. 

Amy shifted and stretched an open hand out to Clara, who, after a short moment of consideration, shook it resolutely. “So, what are we gonna do?” Clara asked afterwards, placed her hands on her hips expectantly and could not hide an honest smile.   
Amy nodded in Rory's direction, who, as if on command, pulled a Laptop out of his shoulder bag and carefully placed it upon the next free bit of surface before opening it up.   
Curiously, Clara peeked over his shoulder. “Okay, listen closely,” he said and glimpsed at her quickly, before he concentrated on his computer again. “Becaus this... is going to be quite complicated.”   
“Here!” Rory pointed to an animation popping up on the screen, which was representing the vortex, on a minimalist scale. Clara stared at the screen with a concentrated frown and tried to follow Rory's explanations. “Amy and I have been traveling around for a little while and have been making hold on several different points on the timeline of the Doctor, to check the land. Here.”   
A timeline, like the ones Clara had to do in school for historic events she had always been quite interested in, faded in slowly. “At this point in time, the Doctor was about 800 years old and alone inside his Tardis. There we discovered, that the Doctor had been working on something when he was hit by his.. uhm..” “Stand-By!” Amy threw in quickly to avoid Rory saying anything out loud which none of them really wanted to hear. And secretly, Rory was really thankful for that.   
“His... Stand-By. At that time we only had a vague theory, mostly based on assumptions, but at our second and third visit, here..and here.” Rory pointed to two further points on the virtual timeline of the Doctor's life, which were titled as “884” and “903”. “..We were sure. The Doctor had observed something abnormal with the demeanor of the Tardis and started to research, when he... at any given point of his life, was... set on Stand-By. With the help of his approaches, River, our daughter, could help us comprehend his train of thought.”   
Amy was seriously glad that Rory avoided explaining the complicated situation with River being their daughter in his own clumsy words. Although Clara had consented to help them, Amy was afraid that they could lose her trust just as fast as they had gained it.   
“And in this way...” Amy took the word. “We set up our own theory.” She cleared her throat. “Explained in an easy way.. a virus has nested into the vortex and clawed itself onto the Tardis, which was possibly coincidentally flying by. Although.. how many coincidences are there, when you're traveling with the Doctor?” Amy asked rhetorically and actually made Clara smile.   
“Yep. That sounds exactly like the kind of trouble he would usually like to get in.” she confirmed and both women shared a moment of silent understanding.   
“Now, this virus, or whatever it may actually be..” Rory continued instead of his wife. “...is causing serious chaos in the timeline of the Doctor. Every Doctor, at any given time, who was inside the Tardis, is now nothing but a holographic image of himself, trapped in a monotonous movement. And in order to reverse this condition, we assume that we have to get back to the exact moment, when the virus hefted onto the Tardis and stop it, before it actually does.” Now Rory was completely focused on the screen again and typed around for a bit, before he continued to explain. “At the moment we're waiting for River to finish her calculations in order to give us the exact place and moment.” Clara, who had been peeking over his shoulder with an interested glance the entire time, now lifted up her eyebrows and looked impressed.   
“She's really clever.” Rory added with a certain pride in his voice, which only a father could express. And even Amy, standing behind the two, couldn't help but smile. Clara broke the slightly awkward silence by straightening up determinedly and asking: “So? Where do we begin? Or uhm..when?” But instead of joining in her enthusiasm, Amy and Rory looked at each other quizzically. “”Well...” Amy started out hesitantly. “Before we can to anything, we need to find out how to fly the Tardis.” she said. Clara stopped short.   
“But you said that you have been flying to different points in his timeline! Why don't we just do it the same way?” “Sorry, not possible.” Rory apologized. “Essentially, it was River, who flew us everywhere. We ourselves have.. rather little knowledge of it.”   
Just as an unbelieving expression formed upon Clara's pretty face, Amy explained: “But.. this is exactly why we're here! According to River you're the only one who can help us fly the Tardis.”   
Now even the last expression slipped from Clara's face. “Me?” she asked airily. “But..how? I know even less than you do! Get your River and let her fly us there.” “No.” Rory said vigorously. “River has to stay where she is. That is important. And you.. you really don't know anything about the controls?”   
“Of course not!” Clara couldn't stop her voice from sounding slightly hysterical.   
Amy and Rory exchanged worried glances. “That means...” Amy crossed her arms and watched the ground in thought, before she actually expressed her thought.  
“We're stuck here.” 

How much time had passed since their conclusion? Nobody could really tell. But Amy and Rory carefully avoided trying to find out with Clara's help, what all the singular buttons and levers meant, mostly because Clara was continuously interrogating herself.   
“Why me? What do I know? What could I know? Have I forgotten anything?” she wandered around restlessly and mumbled under her breath while she considered just how one could get the idea, that of all the people who could possibly be able to fly the Tardis, it was her.   
A later Clara, at a point in time far ahead from this one. That seemed to be the most plausible theory to all of them so far. But then suddenly she stopped dead in her tracks.   
“What is it?” Amy asked curiously. “Amy, what exactly did River say?” The red-headed woman looked at her a little irritated. “Uhm, well.. that you could fly the Tardis and...” “No, wait.” Rory interrupted her excitedly. “You want to know her exact words, right?” Clara nodded. “Then... I think she said: “Find the girl. She can help you find out how to fly the Tardis.” Yeah. That's it.” “Aha!” Clara cried out and pointed at Rory with a snap of her fingers.   
“I'm only supposed to help you find it out! It was never said that I would know how to do it.” A wide grin appeared on her face. “Where's the difference?” Amy asked dryly. “None of us know. We're stuck.” But Clara wouldn't let her tear her down. “Oh I'm so stupid! That I didn't think of that immediately! Interface!” with a silent flash a perfect reflection of the Doctor appeared among them, making them all flinch.   
Still with pure excitement in her voice, Clara turned to the now second holograph of the Doctor in this room. “I need access to the manual of the Tardis!” The holograph twitched a little. “Negative. Access not possible. Manuel has been erased by request.” Rory moaned as their hopes were destroyed just as quickly as they had blossomed. “That is just so him!” he cried out and turned in his chair with frustration. “This..this...” “I know.” Amy said calmly. “I miss him, too.” Upon which Rory sighed deeply.   
“No..no no no. This was actually quite clever of him.” Clara explained, thoughtfully staring at the Interface. “You're right, we're stuck, but just in case the Tardis would ever be stolen, the thief would have no possibility to fly away with her. Except of course if he knew how she works in advance.” But before she could join the others in their melancholy, another idea struck her and her eyes lit up.   
“Amy! Rory! I got it! What would you do if the Internet does not work at your house, but you urgently need to research on something?” She stared into uncomprehending faces. “Oh, come on! Did none of you guys go to college? I'll be back soon!”   
But before Amy and Rory could voice their concern, Clara had already scurried through the door and vanished inside the shallows of the Tardis.


	3. Gallifrey

“Aand I got it!” With these words Clara stormed back into the control room, just as excited as she had left. She held up a heavy looking book and basically slammed it down in front of her new friends, then crossed her arms, not even trying to hide her pride. But instead of greeting her with praise and excitement, Amy and Rory did not even bother looking at her acquisition. Instead, Amy ran up to her with pure fury shooting from her eyes. “Where the hell have you been?”   
Clara looked at her quizzically “What do you mean? I just fetched this book from the library real quick. Look! It's...” “You've been gone for three hours straight! In the meantime River even send us the damn coordinates.” Now Clara finally understood. The Tardis must have played her tricks again, letting time for Amy and Rory pass much slower than for her. But was it really just the Tardis' wicked personality that liked to confuse and cause a commotion, or was she just as much a victim of this mysterious attack she had suffered, as they all were. That was, at least, if you were to believe what the two uninvited guests presented as an explanation. Clara asked herself how long this might have been going on, and contemplated whether she might have done the Tardis wrong by thinking that she hated her. “There must be something really wrong with her.” Clara then said out loud while looking around the console room. The sincere concern in her voice appeased Amy's rage and she sighed as she leaned forward to take a closer look at the book Clara had brought with her. Amy's eyes grew wide once she realized what she was looking at. “Is that...?” she asked and looked at Clara disbelievingly. “Is that ...what?” a confused Rory from the other side of the room wanted to know and decided to step closer. “Yep.” Clara stated, the triumphant smile on her face returning. “A manual for flying a Tardis, for beginners, in book-form.” Rory's eyebrows went up in surprise. “So basically a manual... manual.” Clara grinned. “Basically, yeah.” she confirmed.   
But Amy frowned. “Hold on, wait a minute.” Clara turned to her, ready to defend her idea.   
“There's a library?” Relieve washed over Clara and she smiled again. “Yea. Didn't you know that?” Amy turned to Rory but he just shrugged. “No...we did not.” In that moment Amy decided that as soon as they had the Doctor back, she was going to confront him for not telling them about a damn library existing on the Tardis. But for now it was time to fly this thing and save her raggedy man. 

It was difficult to decipher the Gallifreyan writing on each page but luckily there were also little pictures of what to do right next to the instructions. A few errors in navigation and some seriously scary noises later, they were up and running heading right for the place and time where they were most likely to find a Gallifreyan woman giving birth to who was later going to become a friend to all of them. Or so they thought.  
None of them were only slightly prepared for what was awaiting them. 

They expected a lot upon opening the Tardis' doors. A different culture, voices, maybe music. They might have landed on a huge meadow with no civilization in sight. Maybe they were also right on a busy road or... spaceship flying...area... if there was to be something like that. But nothing could have prepared them for what they saw. A heat wave greeted them right away and underlined the image they had to face.   
Destruction.   
Flames shooting into the air, burning everything around them. Houses, vehicles, people, all the same.   
Everything was glowing in a fatal red and orange light from burning ash that were the remains of a whole culture, planet, people. And they screamed, screeched and cried for their loved ones as they were burning away to nothing. The air smelled of dust, smoke and burned flesh as a dark cloud emerged above the inferno they had landed in and every now and then a loud thud filled the air as houses, homes and lives crashed in front of their eyes. It was a sight that none of them were ever going to forget. The picture and sound of pure torturous death filling the air, leaving their hearts and souls raw and open.   
Gallifrey was burning and the timelords were dying.   
Eventually, it was Clara who managed to turn away from the horror, slammed the doors shut and ran back to the console, pressing buttons and switching levers to get them away from this hell.  
Her eyes filled with tears from heat and horror and Amy stared into thin air as she shakily sat down on the stairs. “Wh...” her voice cracked. “What did we just...see?” Clara's shoulders slumped forwards as she was fighting back her own tears, unable to reply or fathom what had happened.   
Rory was the only one who was still standing in front of the closed blue doors. “It was Gallifrey.” his voice sounded rough and almost as if he was in trance. “Gallifrey is dying. Burning to death and taking everybody with it.”   
During the next few minutes neither of them dared to say another word, as they tried to comprehend.   
But when Clara had finally gained back her composure she managed to ask dryly: “Was this really where he was born? Into this? How would he ever have survived this? Especially as a baby. It can't be right. It can't be.” The last words she muttered rather to herself than to Rory and Amy, but she replied anyways.   
“These were the coordinates River gave us. I don't know how it's possible but it must be. But how... how do we find him in this?” One could still hear the shock in Amy's voice but then again, there was just as much determination in it too. She had always been so brave. Rory sighed. Unlike him. “Okay.” he said. “We're going back one or two days, before all of this was going on, and try to find his mother or .. him or anything that could help us find out where he will end up on this day.” Clara and Amy nodded reluctantly. The idea made enough sense to them, although the trauma from opening the doors to a dying planet sat deep within their bones.   
“Are you ready?” Clara asked and watched her friends. They all knew that even though they had a time machine right beneath their feet, they could not be roaming space forever, until they felt ready for this task. As soon as they would start running away from what they had to do, there would be no stopping.   
“No.” Amy stated. “But I don't think we ever would be. So we have to do this now. For the Doctor.”   
Clara nodded thoughtfully and began to set the coordinator to 48 hours before the events they had just witnessed. 

While the familiar rattling and creaking noises echoed through the Tardis, an uncomfortable silence had fallen among them, leaving everybody to his or her own thoughts, trying to deal with the fact that they had just seen Gallifrey, the Doctor's own home planet, being consumed by an inferno.   
It was Amy who eventually broke the silence. “Why did he never say anything? At all? His whole planet was burning and he just never mentioned it. As if it was irrelevant.” “Maybe he wanted to forget, or was still too small to remember. In any case, it must have been a traumatic experience.” Clara spoke in a low tone, but managed better than Amy to mask away her emotions.   
Rory simply sat silently, consumed by his own thoughts, staring at the Doctor's holograph.   
They all looked up as the Tardis rematerialized itself on the same spot, just a few days before....that day.  
As they all stood in front of the blue doors, bracing themselves for what they were about to see, Clara took the final step and pushed. Their eyes went wide and instantly lit up.  
They were standing right in the middle of a busy market hall, to both their sides long hallways with glass roofs stretched out, with shops and cafés and food courts on either side of them. Everything seemed to glow brownish-red, the houses and walls were smooth as if made up of colored marvel, there were paintings matching in color close to every shop and store, plants with glowing red and green leaves were placed rather asymmetrically along the hallways. Except from this natural glow the only light was coming from the huge sun and bright orange sky, falling through the glass roof, giving the market hall a constantly comfortable climate. The Tardis had landed precisely in one of the several round tower halls, connecting the hallways with each other. As they stepped out of the Tardis, which, with her bright blue appearance seemed incredibly misplaced here. They looked up to a great glass dome with ornamentation all over it, right above their heads, which Rory was the first to discover. Behind their not quite chosen landing spot, there was a great round fountain, overgrown with green tendrils and huge leaves, which frequently collected the water spraying down from the top of the fountain, only to release it with a lapping back into the pool beneath them.   
But the most beautiful thing they saw was not decoration, nor natural grown flora,... it was the people.   
The whole market was filled with voices talking, laughing, rambling about prices, kids fooling around with the toys they spotted and mothers scolding them, couples walking hand in hand, some people running to catch up with their group.   
To them, it was just a miracle to see life. And just as miraculously to them was, that nobody seemed to care about the suddenly appearing strange police box right among them. They just sort of awkwardly avoided running into it while shooting the three of them slightly annoyed glances from the corners of their eyes.  
For a moment they all just looked at each other with amazement, before Clara finally signaled them to step back into the Tardis, where they could have a conversation in peace.   
“All right.” she started excitedly.   
“I think we should split up and meet there again in two hours at the latest. We have to find out everything that could have something to do with the Doctor. Ask someone, anyone! Or overhear conversations just... do something!” Amy nodded and joined in. “Right. I'll take the left wing. Rory, you go right. Here...” she set a timer on his wristwatch. “We'll meet in an hour, right here and tell each other what we got.” Rory nodded submissively. “I'll go straight forward.” Clara closed and ran out the Tardis' doors without further hesitation.   
Rory and Amy looked at each other slightly worried about Clara's haste, but then wasted no time either and followed her out. 

One of the first things Amy noticed about the Gallifreyans was their clothing. While some wore quite boring brown vests, shirts and trousers, others were basically covered in freaky colors and patterns, combining skirts with woolly pullovers or wearing tops that reached down to their ankles, tightly tied together around their waist with a belt. Yet no one seemed to have the exact same piece of clothing. Everybody had their own little fashion quirks and weird taste. Amy couldn't help to grin widely. So that's what the bowtie and fez were all about. Apparently most Gallifreyans were frequently making questionable fashion choices, it simply was part of their culture.   
Especially the hats were standing out to Amy. Most of them were way too huge and extravagant to fit these folks and made them look like clowns on a holiday. Big flowers and greens were sticking out of them, pieces of cloth attached and with the help of some wire were also standing up in every direction.   
For a moment, Amy looked back at her own career, being a model for a makeup company.  
Humans were always trying to look so damn perfect. Smooth skin, red lips, lined eyes and soft hair. Compared to how free and individual the people on this planet had to feel, human fashion shows, cat walks and the ever changing fashion sense seemed absolutely ridiculous to her. Humans were so worked up on staying “stylish” that they didn't even realize how much they were bending themselves to fit some generally accepted image. And here they were, all it takes was a different planet and people would just wear what they wanted to. In this society, Amy believed, nobody would look weirdly at somebody else just because their hair wasn't all straight today, or if the colors of their pants and shirt didn't quite match. Gallifreyans were so much freer in choice.  
One hat looked like somebody had just dumped a gallon of paint over it … ten times. Another had something that looked like real edible fruits attached to it and the further Amy wandered down the hall, the more weird and grotesque the hats got.   
A woman with a beret that was full of googly eyes walked past her^^ and Amy giggled quietly.   
It was an absolute culture shock, but at the same time she felt strangely familiar with this place, giving her a feeling of security and -   
She bumped directly into a tall man standing in front of one of the little shops.  
Had she really been so dazed, that she didn't even notice a man stand right in her way? Anyhow, she mumbled a half-hearted apology and wanted to squeeze past him, when suddenly a strong hand gripped her upper arm. Only then she turned to actually face the man she had ran into. He was tall, lanky and had brown-blonde hair that desperately cried for a cut, as it was dangling into his eyes. A wide grin greeted her and blue friendly eyes looked directly into hers. “Oh. Sorry, lady. Didn't mean to knock you over.” His voice was raspy, although he appeared young, but had a soothing tone to it, that made Amy smile a bit more open towards him. “It's okay. It was my fault.” She said. His hand around her arm loosened and a wondrous expression shot over his face. Without a word he let his hand slide to her wrist and then raised his eyebrows in surprise. Amy felt a bit exposed, although she did not know why, and tried to shake his hand off with a furious glance. He let go but just kept staring at her with his mesmerizing eyes until she couldn't take it anymore and snapped at him a bit more rudely than she had intended: “What is it?”   
“I..I'm sorry.” He said and regained his friendly attitude. “It's just.. are you...?” He hesitated to finish.   
“Am I what?” “Human?” he asked in a lower voice, leaning in to her. Amy looked around nervously. Should she lie? But why? There shouldn't be anything wrong with alien visitors. Nobody seemed to be surprised at the Tardis before, so … she decided to go with the truth. No need to make the first acquaintance based on a lie.   
“Yep.” She said and placed her hand on one of her hips to show her attitude about how he should not have a problem with that. But his reaction left her puzzled.   
“Ooh! You have no idea how lucky you are to have met me!” he declared with the widest and whitest grin Amy had ever seen.


End file.
